Collection: Products

For fans of books like Waiter Rant, and all those who have always wondered how the other half lives, comes this heartfelt, laugh-out-loud memoir from a New York City doorman with astute ears and a penchant for storytelling

As an academically gifted Latino kid growing up in the Bronx, Stephen Bruno's family had high aspirations for his future. He attended magnet schools and selective academic programs and was on track to realize his potential. But those dreams were derailed when, much to his Mami's dismay, he followed a girlfriend to Minnesota and a dead-end job. Languishing and unable to get it together, Stephen eventually moved back home. Broke and eager to make a way for himself--and away from the oppressively religious father wreaking havoc on his love life--the affable, easy going, and quick-witted Stephen lands a much-coveted job as a doorman at a high-end building on Park Avenue.

Hilarity and drama soon abound as Stephen learns the dos and don'ts of being a doorman for the rich and famous and witnesses the antics going on behind the front entrance of this swanky building. In Building Material, he shares those entertaining tales and introduces an unforgettable cast of characters--from Puerto Rican and Albanian doormen battling it out for turf to quirky one percenters to slimy sugar daddies to his peers, both friends and frenemies. Throughout, Stephen offers a glimpse into the unfathomable lives of the residents and a sharp portrait of an everyday man wanting more for himself.

Both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny, Building Material is a captivating true tale of class, failure, and redemption--and how to come back swinging--from a gifted young talent.

To deliver the insights that give them a competitive advantage, organizations increasingly turn to the proven Medallion architecture. Yet implementing a robust data architecture can be difficult, particularly when it comes to using the Medallion architecture's Bronze, Silver, and Gold layers--done wrong, it can hamper your ability to make data-driven decisions. This practical guide helps you build a Medallion architecture the right way with Azure Databricks and Microsoft Fabric.

Drawing on hands-on experience from the field, Piethein Strengholt demystifies common assumptions and complex problems you'll face when embarking on a new data architecture. Architects and engineers of all stripes will find answers to the most typical questions along with insights from real organizations about what's worked, what hasn't, and why.

You'll learn:

• Learn how to build a Medallion architecture with Azure Databricks and Microsoft Fabric
• Gain insights from three real case studies that illustrate practical field experience and lessons learned
• Explore scaling considerations, including governance, security, generative AI, and more
• Make informed decisions when designing or implementing new data architectures
• Get proven patterns for success that align with broader organizational objectives

Building Men is a collection of life lessons offering clear, practical insights into shaping strong, principled young men for the next generation.What defines the making of a man?Jim Tracy didn't just establish multi-million-dollar family-owned businesses from his humble garage; he, alongside his family, embodied the American Dream. Jim attributes this success to the mentors who helped shape him into the entrepreneur and Hall of Fame inductee he is today.In Building Men, Jim explores the essence of true character building, sharing stories of pivotal figures who influenced his business acumen, integrity, and leadership. He offers invaluable insights for anyone looking to guide young men toward becoming conscientious individuals who consistently make wise decisions.From lessons learned from his grandfather to the principles he instills in his grandchildren, Jim provides a roadmap for raising young men in our complex modern world, offering a wealth of inspiration and practical advice.

As organizations shift from monolithic applications to smaller, self-contained microservices, distributed systems have become more fine-grained. But developing these new systems brings its own host of problems. This expanded second edition takes a holistic view of topics that you need to consider when building, managing, and scaling microservices architectures.

Through clear examples and practical advice, author Sam Newman gives everyone from architects and developers to testers and IT operators a firm grounding in the concepts. You'll dive into the latest solutions for modeling, integrating, testing, deploying, and monitoring your own autonomous services. Real-world cases reveal how organizations today manage to get the most out of these architectures.

Microservices technologies continue to move quickly. This book brings you up to speed.

• Get new information on user interfaces, container orchestration, and serverless
• Align system design with your organization's goals
• Explore options for integrating a service with your system
• Understand how to independently deploy microservices
• Examine the complexities of testing and monitoring distributed services
• Manage security with expanded content around user-to-service and service-to-service models

Many tens of thousands of mental health and health care professionals have used this essential book--now significantly revised with 70% new content reflecting important advances in the field--to develop and sharpen their skills in motivational interviewing (MI). Clear explanations of core MI concepts are accompanied by carefully crafted sample dialogues, exercises, and practice opportunities. Readers build proficiency for moving through the four processes of MI--engaging, focusing, evoking, and planning--using open-ended questions, affirmations, reflective listening, and summaries (OARS), plus information exchange. In a large-size format for easy photocopying, the volume includes more than 80 reproducible worksheets. Purchasers get access to a companion website where they can download and print the reproducible materials.

New to This Edition
*Fully revised and restructured around the new four-process model of MI.
*Chapters on exploring values and goals and "finding the horizon."
*Additional exercises, now with downloadable worksheets.
*Teaches how to tailor OARS skills for each MI process.
*Integrates key ideas from positive psychology.

Winner (First Place)--American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award, Adult Primary Care Category

This book is in the Applications of Motivational Interviewing series, edited by Stephen Rollnick, William R. Miller, and Theresa B. Moyers.

You're not fragile. You're not finished. And you sure as hell don't need a chair workout and a protein bar full of lies. Building Muscle at 60 cuts through the hype and delivers what older lifters actually need: hard truths, tested strategies, and results that don't vanish when the fads fade.

Written for men and women who want more than just "aging gracefully," this no-nonsense guide dismantles myths about muscle loss, testosterone, training intensity, and what's really possible after sixty. It covers everything from fighting sarcopenia and rebuilding joint-friendly strength to managing recovery, protein intake, and injuries that didn't show up until your AARP card did.

Each chapter is laser-focused on what works-and what doesn't-when biology, not ambition, sets the rules. You'll learn why cardio won't save your muscle, why most supplements are scams, how to train around nagging pain without quitting, and how to keep making progress when your motivation dries up faster than your knees.

This isn't about vanity. It's about survival. Strength isn't optional at this stage-it's your last insurance policy. Whether you're starting from nothing, rebuilding after years away, or determined to train until you drop, Building Muscle at 60 gives you the tools to stay capable, dangerous, and off the decline conveyor belt.

Forget "take it easy." This is strength training for people who know that soft living is a fast track to the grave. No fluff. No fads. Just the truth-and the plan that gets you back in the game and keeps you there.

Build a natural pond for wildlife, beauty, and quiet contemplation

Typical backyard ponds are a complicated mess of pipes, pumps, filters, and nasty chemicals designed to adjust pH and keep algae at bay. Hardly the bucolic, natural ecosystem beloved by dragonflies, frogs, and songbirds.

The antidote is a natural pond, free of hassle, cost, and complexity and designed as a fully functional ecosystem, ideal for biodiversity, swimming, irrigation, and quiet contemplation.

Building Natural Ponds is the first step-by-step guide to designing and building natural ponds that use no pumps, filters, chemicals, or electricity and mimic native ponds in both aesthetics and functionality. Highly illustrated with how-to drawings and photographs, coverage includes:

• Understanding pond ecosystems and natural algae control
• Planning, design, siting, and pond aesthetics
• Step-by-step guidance for construction, plants and fish, and maintenance and trouble shooting
• Scaling up to large ponds, pools, bogs, and rain gardens.

Whether you're a backyard gardener looking to add a small serene natural water feature or a homesteader with visions of a large pond for fish, swimming, and irrigation, Building Natural Ponds is the complete guide to building ponds in tune with nature, where plants, insects, and amphibians thrive in blissful serenity.

Robert Pavlis , a Master Gardener with over 40 years of gardening experience, is owner and developer of Aspen Grove Gardens, a six-acre botanical garden featuring over 2,500 varieties of plants. A well-respected speaker and teacher, Robert has published articles in Mother Earth News , Ontario Gardening magazine, the widely read blog GardenMyths.com, which explodes common gardening myths and gardening information site GardenFundamentals.com.

Building the world of our dreams has never been more attainable than it is today. Our society is the wealthiest, most knowledgeable, and most technically advanced in history. Yet, why does so much of the modern world around us feel dispiriting?

In this hopeful work, Coby Lefkowitz details how the design of cities and towns is shaped by a community's beliefs, and the decisions made based on those beliefs. If we want to create a better world, we must first embrace the optimistic ideal that such a pursuit is both possible and worthwhile.

Building Optimism explores why American communities look the way they do, and offers a series of concrete reforms to make them more beautiful, desirable, salubrious, and affordable through dozens of project vignettes. Drawing on the fields of urban planning, finance, architecture, governance, and real estate development, Lefkowitz provides a practical guide for developers, city officials, and design professionals on how to create a better future, and a peek behind the scenes for anyone who is curious about how our world is shaped.

A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice
Winner of the 2013 Boston Globe Horn Book Award for Best Picture Book
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2013
A New York Times Book Review Notable Children's Book of 2013

In this unique construction book for kids who love tools and trucks, readers join a girl and her family as they pack up their old house in town and set out to build a new one in the country. Mom and Dad are going to make the new house themselves, from the ground up. From empty lot to finished home, every stage of their year-and-a-half-long building project is here. And at every step their lucky kids are watching and getting their hands dirty, in page after page brimming with machines, vehicles, and all kinds of house-making activities!

As he imagines it through the eyes of his older sister, Building Our House is Jonathan Bean's retelling of his own family's true experience, and includes an afterword with photographs from the author's collection.

Outdoor entertaining is one of the great joys of home ownership, but it shouldn't have to break the bank. In Building Outdoor Kitchens for Every Budget (2015), co-authors Steve Cory and Diane Slavik shared their best wallet-friendly tips for building or renovating your outdoor eating space. Now, Diane Slavik and technical editor Dave Toht have updated the second edition of Building Outdoor Kitchens for Every Budget with fresh materials, detailed how-tos, and photographs to help steer home renovation enthusiasts through the entire process. From backsplashes and pizza ovens to grills and awnings, there are enough tips here to transform your outdoor space into a functioning modern kitchen. Best of all: you'll learn how to keep it all within a limited budget. With over 300 photographs and plenty of comprehensive DIY projects, you'll combine professional aesthetics with self-built costs. It's a detailed update of one of the most essential books for anyone who loves outdoor kitchens--an update you can't afford to miss.

If you've watched Project Runway or Making the Cut and wondered how the competitors instinctively know how to create such a diverse array of garments - it's because they learned the art of pattern making. Ultimate Guide to Designing Patterns for Clothing is an illustrative master class in the art of garment pattern making for aspiring fashion designers, fashion design students, and sewing and fabric enthusiasts. Lifelong designer and patternmaker Suzy Furrer has distilled her 35+ years of fashion pattern experience into this definitive resource for expert pattern making instruction. The book includes 11 chapters, each meticulously explaining a fundamental element of the pattern making process. Each element is fully explored with diagrams and illustrations making it ideal for visual learners. Furrer begins with an introduction to pattern making - explaining what is required for building a proper patternmaking tool kit and terminology used throughout the book before guiding the budding pattern maker through the 11 instructional chapters. QR codes provide additional video instruction.

"I continue to be amazed at the power we can harness in our secondary students by teaching ourselves and our students real numeracy." Pamela Harris

As secondary math teachers, we're often frustrated by the lack of true number sense in our students. Solid research at the elementary level shows how to help all students become mathematically proficient by redefining what it means to compute with number sense. Pam Harris has spent the past ten years scrutinizing the research and using the resulting reform materials with teachers and students, seeing what works and what doesn't work, always with an eye to success in higher math. This book brings these insights to the secondary world, with an emphasis on one powerful goal: building numeracy.

Developing numeracy in today's middle and high school students is reflective of the Common Core State Standards mission to build "the skills that our young people need for success in college and careers." (CCSS 2010) Numeracy is more than the ability to do basic arithmetic. At its heart, numeracy is the ability to use mathematical relationships to reason with numbers and numerical concepts, to think through the math logically, to have a repertoire of strategies to solve problems, and to be able to apply the logic outside of classrooms.

How can we build powerful numeracy in middle and secondary students? Harris's approach emphasizes two big ideas:

• Teach the importance of representation. The representation of student strategies on models such as the open number line, the open array, and the ratio table promote discussion on relationships rather than procedures
• Teach with problem strings. Introduced by Catherine Twomey Fosnot and her colleagues in the Young Mathematicians at Work series, problem strings are purposefully designed sequences of related problems that help students construct numerical relationships. They encourage students to look to the numbers first before choosing a strategy, nudging them toward efficient, sophisticated strategies for computation.

Understanding numerical relationships gives students the freedom to choose a strategy, rather than being stuck with only one way to solve a problem. Using the strings and activities in this book can empower your students to reason through problems and seek to find clever solutions. They'll become more naturally inclined to use the strategies that make sense to them. Students become engaged, willing to think, and more confident in their justifications. When we give secondary students this numerical power, we also help them learn higher mathematics with more confidence and more success.

This practical resource helps students build essential skills for managing the typical math scenarios they encounter every day. Through high-interest lessons, guided activities, and reproducible independent pages, students practice standards-based math skills, such as estimating prices, calculating discounts, reading schedules, evaluating nutrition labels, and more. Scenarios take place at a diner, movie theater, amusement park, sporting event, and many other kid-pleasing, realistic settings. For use with Grades 3-5.

World-changing companies are being built faster than ever. The question is, how?

Building Rocketships provides an insider's guide to creating and scaling transformative products in today's hyper-competitive landscape. Written by veteran product leaders Oji and Ezinne Udezue, who have led teams at Microsoft, Twitter, WP Engine, Discovery Communications, and Calendly, this comprehensive playbook reveals:

• How to identify and solve "sharp problems" that customers will pay to solve
• Field-tested frameworks for building products users love
• Systems for scaling from startup to sustainable growth
• Strategies for integrating AI and staying ahead of rapid change
• Battle-tested tactics used by today's fastest-growing companies

Whether you're a founder, product manager, or tech leader, you'll learn the exact systems and frameworks used to build category-defining products. The authors draw from 45+ years of combined experience to show you how to transform customer insights into winning features, build high-performing teams, and create sustainable competitive advantages.

Praise for Building Rocketships:

"Building Rocketships provides the precise frameworks and strategies that ambitious builders need to create world-changing products. Oji and Ezinne have distilled decades of hard-won wisdom into a practical playbook for building customer-obsessed products that achieve exponential growth."

-Tope Awotona, Founder and CEO of Calendly

"A rich playbook packed with practical advice, unique frameworks, and step-by-step guides for building your product-led business." -Lenny Rachitsky, Author of Lenny's Newsletter

Don't just build another product-build a rocketship. Start your journey to hypergrowth today.

[Pro Edition includes downloadable templates, worksheets and tools used by the authors to build successful products]

Oji Udezue is a former Chief Product Officer, investor, and entrepreneur. He has led Product, Engineering and Marketing at beloved companies like Microsoft, Twitter, Calendly, Atlassian, Typeform, and more. Today Oji is pushing the edges of building AI products by working with established companies and investing in next-generation startups and their founders.

Ezinne Udezue is a former Chief Product Officer, investor and expert in digital transformations. She had led enterprise innovation initiatives at T-Mobile, Discovery Communications, Time Inc., Procore, and WP Engine. Ezinne has demonstrated expertise in scaling product-led organizations.

World-changing companies are being built faster than ever. The question is, how?

Building Rocketships provides an insider's guide to creating and scaling transformative products in today's hyper-competitive landscape. Written by veteran product leaders Oji and Ezinne Udezue, who have led teams at Microsoft, Twitter, WP Engine, Discovery Communications, and Calendly, this comprehensive playbook reveals:

• How to identify and solve "sharp problems" that customers will pay to solve
• Field-tested frameworks for building products users love
• Systems for scaling from startup to sustainable growth
• Strategies for integrating AI and staying ahead of rapid change
• Battle-tested tactics used by today's fastest-growing companies

Whether you're a founder, product manager, or tech leader, you'll learn the exact systems and frameworks used to build category-defining products. The authors draw from 45+ years of combined experience to show you how to transform customer insights into winning features, build high-performing teams, and create sustainable competitive advantages.

Praise for Building Rocketships:

"Building Rocketships provides the precise frameworks and strategies that ambitious builders need to create world-changing products. Oji and Ezinne have distilled decades of hard-won wisdom into a practical playbook for building customer-obsessed products that achieve exponential growth."

-Tope Awotona, Founder and CEO of Calendly

"A rich playbook packed with practical advice, unique frameworks, and step-by-step guides for building your product-led business."

-Lenny Rachitsky, Author of Lenny's Newsletter

Don't just build another product-build a rocketship. Start your journey to hypergrowth today.

[Pro Edition includes downloadable templates, worksheets and tools used by the authors to build successful products]

Oji Udezue is a former Chief Product Officer, investor, and entrepreneur. He has led Product, Engineering and Marketing at beloved companies like Microsoft, Twitter, Calendly, Atlassian, Typeform, and more. Today Oji is pushing the edges of building AI products by working with established companies and investing in next-generation startups and their founders.

Ezinne Udezue is a former Chief Product Officer, investor and expert in digital transformations. She had led enterprise innovation initiatives at T-Mobile, Discovery Communications, Time Inc., Procore, and WP Engine. Ezinne has demonstrated expertise in scaling product-led organizations.